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As I get ready for my next try at writing a novel, I’m reminded through books, movies and television that characters matter. My last few posts have been directed as reading as a writer. If I’ve learned anything during this effort is that strong characters can carry a story.

A great idea for a book is just that – a great idea. Who’s going to carry out that great idea? The characters, of course. Through world building and creating characters a great idea can become a reality. In my first novel I believe I might have suffered from a great idea and not a solid foundation for world building and strong characters. There were inconsistencies in my world and the characters I created might have been flat.

To remedy this going forward, I outlined my novel. It’s actually missing an ending but I’m hoping that’ll flush itself out as start writing. My next project will be to create characters. Develop a few characters that I know well enough to put them into a story. Finally, create a world for my characters to play in. See what kind of trouble they can get into which will eventually turn into my novel.

This is a much different approach than my first novel. Last time, I sketched out my novel, developed a few characters, and didn’t even bother do a world building exercises. I lost my way few times while writing. This was evident after a couple rewrites. A new approach will hopefully address those gaps and tighten up the narrative.

I found a couple of links worth mentioning for anyone needing help creating characters: